10 surprising superstars of Twitter

By Doug Gross, CNN

Updated 1456 GMT (2256 HKT) November 7, 2013

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Photos:Photos: Twitter's most popular

Twitter's most popular – Katy Perry (@katyperry) recently became the most followed person on Twitter with more than 50 million followers. Her bio reads: "Let the light in. Prism. Out now!" See who leads the pack in a variety of categories as of February 1 according to Twitaholic.com.

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Photos:Photos: Twitter's most popular

Twitter's most popular – Singer: Perry grabbed the Twitter throne from Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) who has just over 49 million Twitter followers. His bio reads: "Let's make the world better."

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Photos:Photos: Twitter's most popular

Twitter's most popular – Politician: President Barack Obama (@BarackObama) has 41.2 million followers. His bio reads: "This account is run by Organizing for Action staff. Tweets from the President are signed -bo."

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Photos:Photos: Twitter's most popular

Twitter's most popular – Actor: Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) has 15.6 million followers. His bio reads: "I make stuff, actually I make up stuff, stories mostly, collaborations of thoughts, dreams, and actions. That's me."

Twitter's most popular – Author: Paulo Coelho (@paulocoelho) has 8.9 million followers. His bio reads: "Writer."

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Photos:Photos: Twitter's most popular

Twitter's most popular – Religious leader: The Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama) has 8.4 million followers. His bio reads: "Welcome to the official Twitter page of the Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama."

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Story highlights

The majority of the most-followed Twitter accounts are singers and other celebrities

But less-famous users have amassed big followings as well

Rival Facebook has Twitter's 44th most popular account

Horoscopes, a queen and Lord Voldemort also have huge followings

Everybody knows the big-time accounts on Twitter belong to celebrities -- the Katy Perrys and Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas.

And those are just the singers with more followers than President Barack Obama.

But as the newly public social platform rolls out to investors Thursday, we're taking a look at the surprise stars of Twitter -- the accounts you might not expect to be nestled in the top 200 most followed, alongside the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Adele.

Some come from the ranks of the quasi-famous, those who have parlayed a smaller share of the spotlight into social media stardom through their activity on Twitter. Others have backgrounds that have put them in the public eye in other ways.

OK, this entry kind of goes against the grain of the rest. But we couldn't figure out how One Directionshouldn't be first.

If you're not a preteen girl, or a preteen guy who listens to music he doesn't like to be around teen girls, you may well not even know that One Direction exists. But it does. And the group kind of owns Twitter.

One Direction is a band of young lads from England. They're, by all accounts, dreamy. And they have six of the most popular accounts on the site.

Singer Harry Styles checks in at No. 22, with 17.4 million followers -- more, even, than the 16 million following the band's official account. The other four band members rank 29th, 35th, 38th and 53rd, each of them with more than 11 million followers of their own.

Apparently astrology is a big deal in Indonesia. This account, which awkwardly proclaims itself "The LARGEST ASTROLOGY in the WORLD," has 7.2 million followers, good for No. 110 on the Twitter list.

As best we can tell, this is a Twitter feed, written in Malay, that's the basic equivalent of those one-line horoscopes you get in the daily paper. (Note to fellow Libras: Apparently, it's OK if we're distracted at work today. We might have a cold.)

Stephen Fry is famous. But you wouldn't think he'd be this famous -- twice as many followers as Jamie Foxx.

The British actor and writer, whose credits range from "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" to cult favorites "Black Adder" and "Doctor Who," is a perfect fit for the site -- its 140 characters just enough to share his dry wit. Or pictures of malformed M&Ms.

It's not every day you find royalty on networking sites. But she's answered questions from followers online and told interviewers that sites such as Twitter can be used to achieve real social change. With nearly 3 million followers (No. 456), it seems to be working.

How does a Canadian mom end up with 2.7 million Twitter followers, making her account the site's 554th most popular?

Well, naming your son Justin Bieber helps.

In addition to helping promote her famous son, Mallette talks about her projects, including an autobiography, and offers encouragement to teen mothers such as herself (she was 17 when Bieber was born).